Enterprise software systems are typically sophisticated, large-scale systems that support many, e.g., hundreds or thousands, of concurrent users. Examples of enterprise software systems include business intelligence and business analytics tools, financial planning systems, budget planning systems, order management systems, inventory management systems, sales force management systems, enterprise reporting tools, project and resource management systems, and other enterprise software systems.
Many enterprise performance management and business planning applications require a large base of users to enter data that the software then accumulates into higher level areas of responsibility in the organization. Moreover, once data has been entered, it must be retrieved to be utilized. The system may perform mathematical calculations on the data, combining data submitted by one user with data submitted by other users. Using the results of these calculations, the system may generate reports for review by higher management. Often these complex systems make use of dimensional data sources that organize and manipulate a potentially tremendous volume of data using various data structures. Dimensional data sources may include a plurality of hierarchical dimensions having levels and members for storing dimensional data.
Reporting and analysis end user products (typically referred to as Business Intelligence, or BI, tools) allow users to perform data exploration and analysis on a myriad of data sources, including dimensional data sources. Data from such dimensional data sources may be viewed and explored in forms such as grids and charts.